The Rightfulness of the Mastery
by C.B. Magique
Summary: Riku thinks Sora should have graduated the Mark of Mastery exam with him. Ironicially, it's Sora who thinks otherwise. But honestly, being Keyblade Masters together isn't really what Riku wants out of this.


**I wrote a Soriku scene for DDD, inspired by various Kingdom Hearts meta-posts on tumblr. I'm still not happy with that game but the meta-posts made me feel somewhat okay about at least one aspect of it. And of course it won't be complete until I shoehorn my otp in there.**

 **Warning: I believe Sora's going to be a bit OOC here. I dunno, I sort of wrote him how _I_ wanted him to be at the end of DDD and I don't think it lines up with how he _actually_ was. **

**Drop me a line if you thought it was fine ;) (I'm so annoying)**

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 **The Rightfulness of the Mastery**

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Riku ran after Sora as he left Yen Sid's Tower. The other boy heard him coming and turned around. Riku grabbed him by the arm, sliding his hand down until it rested in Sora's.

"Are you really going to go?" he asked, looking down as his voice cracked.

Sora nodded. "Mm-hm. I failed the test so I'm going to try harder until I can earn the title of Keyblade Master too. I've gotta catch up to you eventually."

Riku shook his head, laughing wryly. "Don't be a fool. You've already caught up to me."

"That's not what everyone else seems to think…" Sora said

"What do they know?!" Riku blurted out, clenching his hands. "They haven't seen you at your best, your real best. What happened in the Realm of Sleep was sabotage, it shouldn't have counted towards the exam."

Sora gawked at him but Riku didn't stop. All the words tumbled out sincerely: "If we did it over I know you would have passed, Sora. From where I stand your light shines brighter than anybody's, even Kairi's and I believe that that was the only reason why we were able to save you. You couldn't fall to Xehanort and the darkness, not completely. You're too strong for that. I think that if Xehanort had kept trying to dig that much deeper and turned you into a vessel things would have gone badly for him. Even with all of that darkness being nurtured, your heart is too full of light. Sora, your heart literally opened a door between worlds!"

"I don't know that it did," Sora added, putting a hand over his heart and looking down at it broodingly. In his mind Kairi's voice recited the words of the letter she'd sent in a bottle. "And I don't think that you're right. Honestly, how can you say that? After all you went through to rescue me…"

"And what about all you went through to find me?! Even when I turned and ran from you… Yen Sid was wrong to fail you for only making the same mistake I've already made."

Sora's face hardened and he rolled his eyes. "You're wrong, Riku."

His arms folded and unfolded, then he sharply turned around and kept walking towards the train's pick-up point. Riku stared at him slack-jawed. Did he make Sora angry somehow? He reached out and grabbed Sora's hand tightly before the other could get out of reach.

"Listen, Sora-"

"It's not the same at all!" Sora suddenly snapped, shocking Riku. "What you did and what happened to me…" he paused and his gaze drifted off to the middle distance as he got lost in thought for a moment. "That's it… that's the difference."

"Sora, what are you talking about?"

"It's like I said. You did what you did. I didn't do what happened to me."

"That doesn't make more sense."

"Don't you see? You've always been the stronger one, finding your own path even if that path led somewhere terrible. I've never walked on my own; I've only ever followed – at my will or against it. Riku, there are things I saw in the Realm of Sleep that made me realise that I don't even know everything about myself. There are things inside of me that I didn't know existed. It's all meant to be connected to everything – to Xehanort, to Naminé and even to the exam – but unlike everything that's happened before nobody can tell me how to reconnect them. I have to learn how to forge my own paths. You learned to see with your eyes closed but even with my eyes wide open this entire time I've been blind on the road I was walking. I haven't been strong enough to make my own way and that's why I can't be a Keyblade Master, not yet."

"Are you even listening to yourself? This isn't like you to doubt like this, least of all yourself."

"I'm not doubting myself! This is me coming to terms with the kind of person I am right now and I'm not strong enough!" Sora shouted, turning back to Riku and twisting his hand out of his grip. "Besides, it's not like you would know. I haven't always told you what I felt about you."

" _But I've seen it,"_ Riku thought, keeping his eyes on Sora in their stand-off. Naminé's drawings as she pieced his memories back together drew a map of Sora's heart that so few would ever have the privilege to see. It had been beautiful.

"You might not think it but I… understand more than you know. And I think this isn't right. You deserve to be the Keyblade Master. More than I do, at least."

Silence dropped like a curtain between them. They stood on the lawn, Riku trying not to be fidgety as Sora stared at him, uncharacteristically unreadable. For a moment, Riku deeply regretted taking that exam for all the things that had changed now because of it. It burned his heart to see now that Sora had _acted_ fine in front of everyone else earlier. He'd never done such a thing so convincingly before. Sora wore his heart on the outside of his body instead of inside, even when he was trying to pretend that his emotions didn't show. This wasn't right. None of this felt right. They were separating again all because of that stupid exam and Xehanort when all Riku wanted to do was meld back together with him.

"If you don't want me to go, just say it," Sora pleaded quietly, gently letting down the barrier between them. "Say it straight, no fancy words or metaphors or attempts at making me feel better."

Riku paused. His lips trembled and his fingers twitched, searching for the warmth of Sora's hand again but Riku stayed still. Then he swallowed thickly and said in a weak voice: "I don't want you to go."

Sora looked away angrily, gazing over the fiery sea surrounding the mysterious tower. He stood there for a minute, not moving while Riku hesitantly reached towards him, always pulling back at the last minute. Finally he lowered his head, turning back around. He slowly closed the distance between Riku and himself, wrapping his arms around the taller boy. Riku's hands lowered to Sora's waist.

"I don't want to go."

Sora sniffed. Riku's arms slid around his back encircling him firmly and surely. He leaned down to plant a kiss on Sora's forehead, prompting him to lift his head and giving Riku the space to plant another one. As he looked up Riku gently placed a kiss over his eyelid, wiping away a teardrop. He continued kissing down that wet cheek, cleaning up the streaks but the tears would just keep coming. He kissed them all away as they fell from Sora's eyelashes until eventually Sora had had enough and weaved his fingers into the back of Riku's hair, grabbing as tightly as he could while he pressed his lips against Riku's. Riku pushed into the kiss hard and pulled his embrace tighter. Despite that, Sora managed to end the kiss, lowered his head and rested it on Riku's shoulder.

"This is something I've got to do if I ever want to be able to pass the exam," Sora explained, sliding his arms around Riku's waist and squeezing them closer together so that they were very nearly heart-to-heart. "I need to walk the path of darkness and see what lies down there with my own eyes, so that when we come up against it again I'll be ready to fight it. I need to walk the path of light too and see what I missed while I was sleeping."

"It'll be dangerous," Riku said, drawing deep from his well of experience while feeling for the rhythm of Sora's heartbeat and trying to match it. "It'll hurt like nothing you've ever felt before in places you'll never be able to reach.

"Yeah, I figured."

Riku breathed a weighty sigh of relief as Sora looked at him with his smile returned; that one that made his whole face glow as if it came from deep within. It assured Riku that Sora would surely be safe—he could light his own way in the dark and he'd always be able to see, unlike Riku who had once been blind.

"Just remember that I'll be waiting for you to get back."

Sora lifted his heels off the ground to reach for Riku's lips with his own. "That's all I need."

He twisted out of the embrace and Riku's arms stayed lax. He watched with the dark weight of regret the sight of Sora's back running away from him, wondering how many times Sora must have watched him do the same. At the edge of the island the tracks appeared. Sora looked up and down and then turned around. Riku's eyes widened. Sora smiled to him one last time from afar and he waved as the train pulled up, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. Sora got on and even when it pulled away he opened a window and leaned out to keep smiling at Riku.

Riku smiled back and lifted one arm to wave, staying like that until the train charged through a portal and disappeared from sight.


End file.
